(2009) A man who always wanted to be famous but who was running out of options, Charles Bronson (Tom Hardy in a singular performance that reminded me of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler) becomes "Britain's most violent prisoner," the alter ego of Michael Peterson, while incarcerated for 34 years (30 of them in solitary confinement).

Arrested for holding up a post office in 1974 (after a decent enough upbringing, though he'd displayed a tendency toward aggressiveness in school and stole from his first employer before marrying and having a child), Charlie never killed anyone.

Based on a true story, this biopic from director Nicolas Winding Refn (co-screenwriter with Brock Norman Brock), obviously influenced by Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, allows Charles, mustachioed and physically imposing with a shaved head, to narrate his criminal career as if he were on stage in grease paint and white gloves with a three-piece suit before an adoring audience: "Always fancied myself as a comedian."

He regards his cell as a hotel room where he can hone his skills, challenging and provoking the authorities into sadistic/masochistic combat (he prefers fighting in the nude): the screws enthusiastically engaging in gang brutality.

He's an expensive prisoner, costing the crown millions of pounds for damages; he's moved from one penitentiary to another until placed in a "funny farm." Drugged into submission by the "lion tamers," he attempts to strangle a pedophile in order to get a trial so that he will get sent back to his hotel room in the slammer; but his victim survives.

Our having to rely solely on Charles's presentation, several events are left curious and ambiguous, such as during his 69 days outside (certified as sane - which leaves us questioning the sanity of the penal system) when ("I was building an empire") he becomes an underground bare-knuckles fighter (in matches against men or dogs) for Paul (Matt King), a boxing promoter he'd met in prison (who recommends a new name, a movie star: "Death Wish has you down to a T"), and his relationship to a girl (introduced through his Uncle Jack, at a party with several ladies and others in ladies' attire) to whom he declares his love but who tells him she's getting married to her boyfriend after Charlie's stolen a diamond ring for her.

This latter offense lands Bronson back behind bars and inside cages after taking hostages; the prison governor expresses being at a loss as to what to do with Charles after having him once again beaten, bound, and gagged in solitary.

Other than splattering blood about, Charles discovers through an art instructor his having promise as an artist; he then employs his mentor as the canvas on which to display that piece of himself he's left out of his other creative expressions. What a piece of work is this Charles Bronson, a remarkable self-representation of an original.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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